Thursday, September 6, 2007
I'll admit it: Whenever I see a movie title that's been adapted into a game, it usually produces a sigh of contempt. My bad road with this type of game started with Ghostbusters on the NES and continued with the ever-present thorn in my side Fight Club (I mean, Fred Durst? Really? Really?). Needless to say, I have my own dispositions, and now EA's new Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was going up against these prejudices.
The game opens and the first strike makes itself known. As far as story goes, the game's plot is a butchered job of the movie/book. The right highlights are presented to keep things moving, but for the most part, it seems a pair of scissors got a hold of the script and tore it to pieces.
Other problems: Reoccurring headaches are brought forth while listening to Ron and Hermione nag you to do mission objectives (they are always with you), and there are a few small rooms where the camera angles prove more frustrating than helpful.
However, aside from the fact that the characters use the adjective "Brilliant" way too much, the gameplay itself is where the bad comments end and where the good stuff starts rolling in. The objectives of the game are very, very simplistic. While some people may think this a down side, keep in mind that this is a game designed for children. Mundane tasks are definitely on the menu. Throw in a few schoolyard brawls, and you have something that fills the requirements of a game like Harry Potter, but then the developers go and add some other things to sweeten the deal.
First off, we have the controls. I have a pretty good idea how it works on the other consoles, but straight up, this game was made for the Wii. I mean, you use your remote as a magician's wand! How cool is that? And it's amazingly responsive. I've been known to criticize multi-platform releases on the Wii, but the guys designing the controls for Harry Potter nailed it. I couldn't be happier.
Other high points come from the various mini games played throughout the castle, like Wizard's Chess, Gobstones, and Exploding Snaps. These are as entertaining as the side challenges found in games like GTA: San Andreas, and they do their part to add another layer to the world.
As for the world at large, Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix is basically a sandbox game where you get to explore Hogwarts Castle and the surrounding grounds. There are a number of different rooms to search, and even more Easter eggs to find. As you play through the task of finding the members of Dumbledore's Army, you gain magic points and discover secrets that unlock prizes and behind-the-scenes content that you can view in the Room of Rewards.
The Marauder's Map helps you find your way during all this, though it is not very detailed, but once you choose a location you want to reach on the map, shadowed footsteps help lead you there in the game.
The fights in the game are somewhat boring, and, since there's no penalty of death in the game, even if you lose the story still continues. But since the skirmishes are not greatly emphasized—they seem more like another mini game to be honest—the problem doesn't cause too much concern.
Later on in the game, you get the chance to play briefly as Sirius Black, Dumbledore, and the Weasley Twins, but they are by no means unlockable characters, and their inclusion serves merely as a marketing point; just another feature to declare on the back of the box. This, however, is forgivable as well.
As a kid's game, Harry Potter will keep the younger players busy for days running through all the stairs and hallways of the castle while working their way through puzzles and tasks. For older gamers, it will be appreciated for its controls, graphics, and abundance of things to do and explore.
Overall, I'm happy with the way Potter stood up to my usual doom and gloom attitude toward movie-to-game titles. I give it 4.5 Gems.
Visit the official game site and also subscribe to the Potter newsletter to keep up on all things Potter.
The seven-part Harry Potter series of fantasy novels was written by English author J. K. Rowling about an adolescent boy wizard named Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. The story is mostly set at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a school for young wizards and witches, and focuses on Harry Potter's fight against the evil wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents as part of his plan to take over the wizarding world.
Since the release of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States) in 1997, the books have gained immense popularity, critical acclaim and commercial success worldwide, spawning films, video games and merchandise. The seven books published to date have collectively sold more than 325 million copies[2] and have been translated into more than 64 languages.[3] The seventh and last book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was released on 21 July 2007.[4] Publishers announced a record-breaking 12 million copies for the first print run in the U.S. alone.[5]
The success of the novels has made Rowling the highest-earning novelist in history.[6] English language versions of the books are published by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom, Scholastic Press in the United States, Allen & Unwin in Australia and Raincoast Books in Canada.
The first five books have been made into motion pictures by Warner Bros. The sixth, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is set to begin filming in September 2007, and has a scheduled release of 21 November 2008.[7]
Because people keep asking: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets will be released in the U.S. on June 2, 1999. The release date was stepped up from September because of demand. -- cms
Harry Potter doesn't know it yet, but in magical circles, he's the most famous boy in the world. The premise of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, published in the UK under the equally unwieldy title of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, is that the world is secretly full of witches and wizards. They have their own newspapers, their own currency, and their own schools; and they all go to a great deal of effort to conceal the existence of magic from the mundane folk, who are, for no adequately explained reason, known as Muggles. It is a thoroughly delightful book, ideal for reading aloud to children, and clever enough for adults.
When Harry Potter was a baby, the evil wizard Voldemort killed his parents and tried to kill Harry too. Harry inexplicably failed to die, however, and Voldemort vanished, apparently out of pure frustration. While Britain's witches celebrated like Munchkins who've just seen a chunk of Kansas real estate land where it'll do the most good, Harry was sent to live with his only surviving family, the Dursleys.
The Dursleys, regrettably, are the sort of pathologically insipid middle-class caricatures that usually die gruesomely in Roald Dahl stories. Harry leads a miserable existence with his pompous uncle, shrill aunt, and oafish cousin Dudley. He sleeps in a spider-filled closet under the stairs; he wears Dudley's cast-off clothing; and he inevitably gets blamed whenever anything odd happens. Harry gets blamed a lot, because odd things do seem to happen around him, particularly when Dudley torments him. The first several chapters, in which the Dursleys try to cope with Harry, are hilarious and unpredictable. (Orphans always do seem to be much more satisfyingly mistreated in British books than in American ones. Perhaps British authors feel obligated to uphold the tradition of Dickens and Burnett, or maybe they're just crueller by nature.)
Everything changes on Harry's eleventh birthday, when a hairy giant arrives to deliver his acceptance to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the most exclusive boarding school in Britain for magical folk. The story turns rather formulaic once Harry arrives at Hogwarts. All the boarding school cliches make an appearance: the swaggering bully, the spitefully unfair teacher, the Big Game. Of course, at most boarding schools, the spiteful teacher uses a less arcane textbook than One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, and the Big Game isn't played swooping on broomsticks high above the field.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is just a tremendously likable book, the sort that makes you smile at odd moments when bits of it pop into your head. Even when it's predictable, it's sprinkled with whimsical details: owl mail, booger-flavored jelly beans, school ghosts who really take an interest. J.K. Rowling does leave a few very deliberate loose ends for the sequels to deal with. The next book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, is already out in Britain, and will be published in the US in June 1999.
Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.
"Welcome!" he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!
"Thank you!"
He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Harry didn't know whether to laugh or not.
"Is he -- a bit mad?" he asked Percy uncertainly.
"Mad?" said Percy airily. "He's a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Harry?"